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Multi-Pings

This script will automate ping tests to multiple network nodes instead of having to ping 10 or 20 IP addresses individually. This script is my first project and my introduction to the realm of software 🤓. Show me some encouragement by staring 😄.

Modules Used

import csv
import os
import time
from datetime import datetime

File Handling

The script runs by first opening a CSV file using the open() function then assigning the return value to a variable as seen below:

lagos = open('Lagos_DCN.csv', 'r',)
accra = open('Accra_DCN.csv', 'r',)
seixal = open('Seixal_DCN.csv', 'r',)
civ = open('CIV_DCN.csv', 'r',)
  • Note: the content of my CSV file looks like this:
    name ip_address
    Node 1 8.8.8.8
    Node 2 ...
    Node 3 ...

Then these files are read using csv.reader() as seen below:

lagos_dcn = csv.reader(lagos)
accra_dcn = csv.reader(accra)
seixal_dcn = csv.reader(seixal)
civ_dcn = csv.reader(civ)

csv.reader() will return an iterable object and assign it to variale as above. You can find more information in the python documentation

A function was now created to handle pings to IP addresses read from the CSV file as seen below:

def run_ping(ip_address):
    ping_reply = os.system('ping -n 3 ' + ip_address)
    return ping_reply

Then the function below will save ping status of IP addresses that are not reachable to a .txt file then use the datetime module imported to include the current date to the filename. From the os module os.makedirs() function is used to create a directory within the script's directory.

def saveResult(nodeName, NodeStatus):
    name = nodeName + ' on ' + datetime.now().strftime('%d-%m-%Y')
    filename = "Result/%s.txt"% name
    if not os.path.exists(os.path.dirname(filename)):
                try:
                    os.makedirs(os.path.dirname(filename))
                except OSError:
                   pass
    with open(filename, "x") as f:
        for items in NodeStatus:
            f.write(items + '\n')
  • since f.write() function does not wirte list rather strings, there was a need to iterate through a list of ping status.

Usage

  • Note: A list was created to hold ping status.

# * This list holds the nodes that are not reachable. 
statusList = []

The code below does the whole magic. So, with lagos_dcn = csv.reader(lagos) object:

print('\n'+ asterisks + '\nLAGOS DCN Connectivity test' + '\n'+ asterisks)
print('\nOpening LAGOS DCN Nodes...........')
time.sleep(3)
for row in lagos_dcn:
    if row[0] == 'name':
        pass
    else:
        print('\n' + asterisks1 + ' Running pings on {} '.format(row[0]) + asterisks1)
        if run_ping(row[1]) == 1:
            stat = '{}'.format(row[0]) + ' is not reachable'
            statusList.append(stat)
        time.sleep(2)
saveResult('Lagos_DCN', statusList)
statusList.clear()
lagos.close()

  • Note:

    • since I was dealing with network devices already in production and due to security, I didn't want to run simultanous pings to those devices which may cause the network device to think that a DDOS attack is coming in then trigger a shutdown 😰. So, I used time.sleep(2) to delay pings to the next device in the CSV file by 2 seconds
    • since I am working with 4 CSV file, I decided to reuse the same statusList = [] to hold the result of all unreachable nodes in each file. to achieve this, I clear the entire the list after each iteration using statusList.clear().